I love making all types of breads but sometimes I am just not in the mood to wait 5 hours for my breads to proof with yeast, especially in the summer time! I just don’t have the energy to knead for 20 minutes, but I still crave a fresh slice of home baked bread with a dollop of butter! That being said, I have worked really hard to create a really simple country white bread recipe that yields a light and fluffy loaf of without the yeast or the knead!

I hope you enjoy it as much as my family and I do!

Ingredients

1 & 1/2 cup Milk (your choice)

1 & 1/2 tbsp Vinegar

2 Large Eggs

3 cups All Purpose Flour

2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 cup Granulated Sugar

1/2 tsp Sea Salt (Not Iodized)

Recipe

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix the dry ingredients into one mixing bowl. Mix wet ingredients into a separate container/bowl.

Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient while stirring gently and folding into the flour mixture. Mix with a spoon until the mixture is smooth OR you can use your bread hook on a stand mixer for about 3 mins (not required).

Grease a bread loaf pan with butter or cooking oil and pour mixture into pan. Bake at 350 for 60 mins or until toothpick comes out clean and top has a light brown crust.

(Optional) Brush top with an egg wash for a thicker crunchier crust.

Let cool on cooling rack for 20 mins before cutting or serving.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezey! Enjoy!

Take a look below the post to check out items I personally use to make recipes like this.

Looking for a stand mixer without the Kitchen-Aid price? I personally purchased a hamilton beach 5 qt mixer from Amazon to make breads like this one with ease. Even though this recipe doesn’t require a knead, the bread hook on this guy works amazingly well. I highly recommend it!

I use these bread pans that really make all the difference when trying to get your loafs out without leaving any crumbs behind.

The best sugar cookie I’ve ever had comes from an amish recipe and I swear it yields the most amazing soft buttery crumbling cookie in the world. Take a shot at this super simple recipe and let me know how it works for you in the comments!

Ingredients

1 cup softened butter

1 cup virgin olive oil

1 cup sugar

1 cup confectioners/powdered sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cream of tartar or lemon juice as a replacement

Directions

In large bowl beat the butter, oil, and sugars until smooth.

Add and beat in the eggs until well blended.

Beat in vanilla.

Gradually add in flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar (or lemon juice) into the mixture.

If you know anything about me, you know I LOVE to cook food for my family. I especially love getting back to basics and learning to make food from scratch to fulfill some sort of pioneer woman calling inside of me haha! I got really passionate about soft cheese making about 5 or 6 years ago when I took a class at one of my local CSA farms here in, San Diego. It was a pretty intense class and I kept thinking to myself how these relatively easy to understand steps could be broken down so much more simply to make it fun. The class was intimidated from the start and I thought to myself “This is going to be so hard, I’m never going to figure it out in my own kitchen!” My goodness was I wrong. Soft cheesemaking is not only easy, but it’s honestly so much fun!

Most of you are going to have many of the tools necessary for making your own cheese in your house, but just in case you don’t I have added a few links to products you can purchase on Amazon. I love Amazon almost as much as I love making cheese, the 2-day Prime shipping is worth every penny. Here is a link to sign up for a a free trial of Amazon Prime if you don’t already have one to take advantage of their 2-day free shipping: Try Amazon Prime 30-Day Free Trial

Clicking on the links to the right of each item on the list will take you straight to the same exact products I purchased and used when I made the cheese in the picture below. Doesn’t it look delicious!?

Here is my easy to follow recipe for Mozzarella Cheese. This will make about 1-2 pounds of cheese. Enjoy!

Remove your stock pot from the stove once the milk reaches 90 degrees and add 1 tsp of liquid rennet. (If you are using a tablet, dissolve 1/4 of a rennet tablet in a tiny bit of water before adding to the milk)

Stir the liquid rennet or dissolved tablet into the milk for about 30 seconds. An up and down motion with your spoon works best instead of a swirling motion.

Let the milk stand covered and untouched for at least 5 minutes then take a look at your milk. The milk should look firm or a bit like unsettled jello. Give the pot a jiggle to find out if the milk has begun to curd, and if it hasn’t you can let the milk sit for longer.

Once the curds begin to firm you want to “cut” them. Take a long bread knife or long thin spatula and slice the milk in about 1″ slices (just like you would a loaf of bread). Make sure you reach your knife all the way to the bottom and each side of the pot, cutting the curds all the way through.

Once you cut the first slices go ahead and cut the curds into the opposite direction to form a “checkerboard” also about 1″ slices. Once the curds are cut you’ll see the whey (yellow liquid) start to pool away from the curd (thicker part of the milk).

Now put your cut curds and whey back on the burner and cook to 105 degrees.

Once the curds and whey hit 105 degrees remove the pot from the stove and drain your curds. The easiest way to drain your curds is to line a basic pasta strainer with cheese cloth and set that strainer on top of another large pot to catch the whey. Make sure you save the whey!

Drain as much of the whey from the curds as you can by lightly squeezing the curds inside the cheesecloth. You want the curds to be pretty solid, almost like a crumbling cream cheese, but not too dry. If you’re having trouble draining, it also helps to hang a ball of the cheese inside the cheesecloth above a bowl or pot to let the whey naturally drip away from the curds.

Once the curds have been drained, form small balls of the curds with your hands. The size of the curds don’t matter, its totally up to your preference. You can even make one large ball if you’d like, although I wouldn’t recommend that for your first time.

Cook the whey in your original pot until it reaches 175 degrees then gently scoop the balls of curd using your cheese curd ladle/skimmer and gently set the ball into the cooking whey. Let it cook for a few minutes.

Time to put on your thick gloves!

Use a cheese curd ladle/skimmer to scoop the ball of curd from the cooking whey into your glove and begin to fold and mold the curds into itself like you would with bread. After 3-4 folds attempt to stretch the curd like you would silly putty then fold it back into itself.

Sprinkle the curd with a few shakes of salt and continue to fold and stretch. If your curds don’t want to stretch after a few folds, submerge the ball back into the cooking whey for 2 minutes then remove, salt, fold, and stretch again. Try not to over cook, over stretch, or over salt! You’ll only need a few minutes per ball to make it stretch, otherwise they will turn into a crumbling mess!

Once they stretch a decent amount (it doesn’t have to be stretch armstrong, think stringy cheese) and the cheese begins to shine, roll the curds back into a ball and submerge them into a bowl of ice water for 1-2 minutes. Sprinkle them with dried herbs or fresh basil and enjoy your fresh cheese!

That wasn’t so bad right?! Tell me how it worked for you in the comments!

These overnight oats are so simple and thrifty you’ll be wondering why you never knew about them! An easy 123 recipe that you can create with practically any ingredients that you and your family will be craving more!

Step 1: Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Make sure to mix well so that all the oats are covered with milk & yogurt.*If you are using steel cut oats, I recommend following the cooking directions for the oats first. They tend to be tougher than rolled oats and take extra time to cook to be edible.

Step 2: Scoop or pour the mixture into large mouth jars or jars that are large enough to fit a spoon into easily. This should be enough mixture to fill 2 large mason jars or 3 smaller jars. I like to use jars that are laying around the house, so any glass jars with a lid will work!

Step 3: Screw the lid on tight, and leave the jars in the fridge overnight or at least 8 hours to let the oats soak up the milk and become soft and delicious. In the morning, grab and go!

Get creative! You can use practically any ingredients to make this super simple and frugal breakfast! What about bananas and cocoa powder or Nutella! Try mangoes and coconut milk for a tropical flavor. Experiment with different flavors, and tell us what came out the best for you!

Welcome!

Jax Baxter | Blogger | San Diego, CA

Hello Baxter is a blog for the wanderlust and free spirit at heart. My modern-day bohemian lifestyle is about frugal DIY ideas, thrifty cooking recipes, travel and adventure, and my own take on self-sufficiency living in the city.